Going Raw

I’m in the middle of an experiment, eating most of my produce raw (or minimally cooked; I have boiled my corn and steamed my greens and green beans). I know it’s good for you, but that was not my motivation—sheer laziness made me give it a try. I have a lot of work piling up in drifts on my desk at the moment, so I’m spending more time than usual immersed in red pencil marks and subject-verb agreement. The idea was to save a little time on meal preparation, especially since my significant other is off on a bike trip to Lake Erie and my son spends dinner time delivering pizzas, so no one around here is currently expecting a cooked dinner.

It was also a good time to try this experiment—we got a few tomatoes last week, and my secret supplier (I’m not telling you where the stand is because they are go fast) has provided an elegant sufficiency the past few weeks—and what’s better than a raw tomato? The cucumbers, peppers, and even squash are also good candidates for raw eating, and a trip to Findlay Market for an avocado, berries, and other fruit, provided more than enough “raw materials” for this week’s meals.

One night I simply chopped up tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and avocado and arranged them artfully on a plate, drizzled on chocolate balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and let it sit for a little while, by which time it had marinated into a delicious mélange.

Even though I’m eating raw, I do some preparation. I had finished up the last of the classic gazpacho I made last week, so I tried some cucumber gazpacho this time. If you got some of those small yellow cucumbers in the share, you know how sweet and tasty they are. I used them and a regular cuke in place of the English cucumbers in this recipe posted on the blog last year, and I had everything else I needed. The recipe just calls for pureeing the vegetables with some oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Absolutely no cooking, and you eat it cold . . . and raw.

I’m not sure how long the Raw Experiment will continue, but we’ll see if anything else I try is worth mentioning in a future blog. And if you have any suggestions for how to prepare raw vegetables—or cooked produce, for that matter—please comment!